ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul (2-5 NSIC, 0-3 South) dropped a 41-21 home decision on Saturday afternoon to Upper Iowa (2-5 NSIC, 1-2 South) at Sea Foam Stadium. The road gets tougher next week as CSP travels to #6 Sioux Falls as the Cougars look to improve to 7-0 at Winona State today.

Concordia fell behind 21-0 by the opening seconds of the second quarter as Upper Iowa scored its first touchdown on a short field following an interception on the Golden Bears' opening drive, and added a 50-yard interception return for a touchdown midway through the second quarter. Both interceptions halted productive drives into Upper Iowa territory by the CSP offense.

Concordia's third drive once again brought the offense deep into UIU territory to the 23 yard line, but stalled following a pair of losses on running plays, a sack and penalty to take the team out of field goal range to the 44.
 

On its third possession, Upper Iowa took a commanding lead by converting a third and 11 with a quarterback keeper, with Brent Lammers rushing for 20 yards. A 56-yard pass to Trey MacTaggart put the Peacocks in the red zone at the end of the first quarter, allowing them to extend the lead to 21-0 following the key third down pickup deep in its own territory.

The result was a decisive 21-0 edge on the scoreboard in a game that was playing out otherwise competitively on the field, just 15:04 into play.

In addition to the early turnovers, Upper Iowa also converted all three fourth down conversions it attempted on the day with two of the conversions leading to touchdowns and the third setting up a field goal.

Concordia outscored Upper Iowa 21-20 the rest of the way as junior quarterback Ron Johnson completed 27-44 for 271 yards and three touchdowns. All four totals (C-A-Yds-TD) were career-highs as the touchdown passes tied his previous mark set in week three against Minnesota Duluth.

He connected with six different targets for at least three receptions each, finding sophomore Alquawn Vickers eight times for 46 yards. Vickers also rushed five times for 21 yards and had 49 kickoff return yards for a team-high 116 all-purpose yards in the game.

R.Johnson put Concordia on the scoreboard with a 27-yard connection to freshman running back Darnell Rolle out of the backfield with 10:21 to play in the second quarter. Rolle had a strong performance, rushing for 17 yards and nabbing three receptions for 43 yards.

Lammers added a 22-yard keeper for a touchdown later in the quarter before R.Johnson made a fourth down connection for a 9-yard touchdown to senior Alex Carr out of the backfield with 2:10 to play in the first half to make it a 28-14 game at the break.

In the third quarter, Concordia wasn't able to chip into UIU's two touchdown lead as the Peacocks converted a pair of short field goals, with the defense holding the Peacocks in the red zone twice, pushing the lead to 20-points, 34-14. But the two field goal drives were crushing to Concordia's momentum, taking 5:02 and 4:49 off the clock, respectively as UIU ran 14 plays each drive including a fourth and two conversion on the first drive and a third and 14 pickup on the second.

Early in the fourth, R.Johnson connected with DeCeon Schumann for a 19-yard touchdown, bringing the margin back to a two-score game. Schumann, a cornerback a year ago, had career-highs of four catches for 53 yards and his first career touchdown in the game.

But Upper Iowa was able to answer with another double-digit play drive (11 plays) to take up nearly four more minutes (3:51) to put the game back out of reach as Ryan Parmely barrelled in from one yard out for his second touchdown run of the day. Upper Iowa picked up another key third down on the drive, executing a third and five from the CSP 29.

Lammers completed 16-27 for 190 yards and rushed 15 times for 100 yards with a pair of rushing scores while Parmely carried 16 times for 56 yards and the two touchdowns. Upper Iowa was able to run effectively, picking up 227 yards and four touchdowns as a team on 53 attempts.

Concordia, meanwhile had 33 rushing attempts for 30 yards including being sacked five times to hinder the rushing totals.

While Lammers was intercepted once in the first half by Jamie Fore to setup the Carr touchdown, he wasn't sacked and that was UIU's only turnover of the game as UIU outscored CSP 14-7 off turnovers. Entering play, UIU was -7 on the season in the take/give which led to the Peacocks going to Lammers under center.

Concordia's defense was led by senior linebacker David Reed's 11 tackles and freshman safety Brian Lanier's career-high 10 tackles.

Upper Iowa was able to tally 13.0 tackles for loss as a team including five sacks by five different players with Eric Munoz leading the charge with 12 tackles, 1.5 for loss, a sack and an interception.

On special teams, junior punter Sam Maedke averaged 44.0 yards with two of his five punts being pinned inside the 20 with a 40.4 net average while redshirt freshman Peter Farris executed all four of his kickoffs for touchbacks.